richardew

Picked up my wheels today. Had them done at Wheels America (no affiliation). I am very pleased with the results. Here are the before and after shots. I don't know which was which. The owner of Wheels America is a Porschefile. I encouraged them to advertise on Rennlist.

95GPW993

Those look great! Mine are in pretty rough shape. If I may ask, what did they charge? Did you have all four wheels refinished?

richardew

This one was wheely the worst of the lot. It had a crack on the inner lip. I still don't know if it was successful yet. The last two pics are of the repair. I didn't spot it until they showed me the repair. They said that they would stand by the repair. It's only 40 minutes away so not a big problem. I plan to mount my summer tires on the first two rims, and I'll test the repaired rim with one of my winter tires later this month. At some point I'll have to have the front rims done also. The service is overnight so I'll just leave the car on jack stands for a night while the repair is done.

Hats off to Marlon who sold me one of the top wheels at a great price. That's what the Rennlist community is all about.

richardew

$129 a wheel. No extra for the repair.
http://www.wheelsamerica.com/

Texas993

Seeing the before pics made me think of an Eddie Murphy line: "Baby 'dat Nasty!"

Butzi

Interesting. I spoke with Wheel Enhancement yesterday and they said, "No way!" on the repair of a small crack...oh, and they would have to order a new wheel from Germany...!

I understand that aluminum is not very pliable (and that Wheel Enhancement is always trying to make a sale), but I'd like to know how strong your fix is...

richardew

I can't tell you how well the repair will hold up. I don't think that I'll find out in the near future. By the end of the month I'll put a tire on it and see if it holds air. I imagine that the weld will hold. The owner of Wheels America is a Porsche racer who got into this fixing his own wheels, at least that's what the store manager told me.

I wish I knew what makes the wheel crack in the first place. I worry about the other 3 wheels on the car that have the same amount of wear on them. One nice thing about having so many miles on the car is that whatever used part I pick up probably has been used less. Does the metal fatigue and develop hairline cracks that grow? Where are the engineers out there? I could always take it to work and x-ray it and look for cracks. Hmm. CT might even be better. Hmm. One order (bribe) of General Tso's Chicken should do the trick.

Butzi

I like the General's chicken. And I'm hungry. Won't using xrays make it radioactive...? Thatl'll sure burn rubber (ok, bad one).

The properties of aluminum are beyond my knowledge. However, when I used to road bike, I would avoid using alu-frame bike due to my size (over 200 lbs) and choose steel frames instead given the more pliable properties of the steel. I was told the alu frames fatigue and crack easier... may no longer be true with all the mixing of metals...

Marlon

Holey smokes - those look great! Awesome...gotta' put those guys in my rolodex...

mar